


Salad-Head

by yuletide_archivist



Category: Fairy Tales & Related Fandoms
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-09-02
Updated: 2007-09-02
Packaged: 2018-01-25 04:44:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,344
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1632227
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yuletide_archivist/pseuds/yuletide_archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Once upon a time, a girl named Arugula got off a bus in New York City. But a few things happened first.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Salad-Head

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Brigdh

 

 

Once upon a time, a girl named Arugula got off a bus in New York City.

But a few things happened first.

She was born to two rebellious dreamers, who named her after the food her pregnant mother had craved most, who carried her in a woven hemp sling, fed her pureed organic peas on demand and gave her abundant smiles. Her mother's family had meanwhile dwindled through misfortune to an elder sister who'd perfected the family inheritance of a pinched expression, whom Arugula's parents visited mainly due to their memories, augmented by her frequent reminders, of how she'd grown salad greens for her pregnant sister. One day when they had left their daughter in her aunt's company they drove rather too fast in returning, and their little Volvo slipped from the road into deep water and carried them down into the dark. So Arugula spent a decade in the care of her aunt, who did nothing abundantly, especially smile, and whose face grew ever more pinched and severe each time she called her niece by the hippified name she'd always said was unfit for a young lady.

Arugula grew a little taller, a little plumper, her hair blonde and past her waist; she never visited the City an hour's drive away, never wandered with friends from her aunt's assigned routines. In the fall of her seventeenth year, she followed her aunt into Wednesday night prayer meeting, eyes carefully downcast, and only looked up to find a seat.

Her gaze caught on a girl about her age, crisp black curls glossy beneath the ceiling lights, black jeans frayed and red T-shirt stretched precariously over her chest, slouched hip-shot against a pew. Arugula's aunt greeted the woman beside the girl, who had the same nose, bright yellow hair, and loud views on the trials of protecting teenage girls' virtue from the evils of the world.

The girl's eyes, glinting and dark like her hair, roved the room as she chomped her mouthful of gum, till they met Arugula's and crinkled at the corners as she smiled. "Hey," she said, "I'm Zel. What's your name?"

When Arugula told her Zel's laugh rang off the ceiling like organ music, her teeth bright and her lips shiny pink. Zel winced when her mother slapped her arm and hissed, "Druzella, act like a lady!", but kept laughing, took a deep breath and kept smiling. At Arugula.

So Arugula met Zel, near the end of her seventeenth year. When on her birthday she brought Zel home after school, her aunt cast a wary eye on Zel's threadbare T-shirt and clunky boots, but granted that Zel's mother was "trying her best" with her and allowed them to study in Arugula's room. Zel's mother was meanwhile pleased with Arugula, delighted to see her daughter already making friends in her new school, and persuaded Arugula's aunt to send her over for evenings at their house.

Arugula would've endured far worse than Zel's mother's tasteless cooking and loud voice for the prize of sitting in Zel's room or having Zel in hers, of being alone together. There she could read the books she kept hidden beneath her bed, always aware through tales of dragons and quests of Zel tucked to her back, snickering over comic books or sighing over poetry; sometimes Zel would read her the poetry, which usually didn't rhyme, but Arugula began to hear the subtler structures within it. Tucked away with Zel, Arugula could talk hesitantly of her barely-remembered parents, listen to Zel's stories of her equally dead father, discuss what they heard in church; Arugula had been privately doubting it since her parents hadn't returned, and Zel loudly mocked it and cursed to make Arugula giggle.

"Jesus was a fuckin' punk, A," Zel said one early March night, as slush thumped the walls and rattled the windows. "Driving the bankers outta the Temple, keeping it real." She'd been halfway through changing when she'd started ranting, and restlessly paced around her bed dressed in a ragged skull tee and panties. "The congregation, my mom, your aunt-- they're the Pharisees." She had muscle under her padding, sleek and solid, and wide round hips, and Arugula squirmed a little where she sat, watching Zel bounce back and forth. "All this _bullshit_ \-- dammit!" Arugula was giggling helplessly now, and Zel caught the giggles too, throwing herself on her bed to lean on Arugula's shoulder.

Pressed to her, Arugula put her hand on Zel's arm, carefully, lightly; her skin felt like cream tastes, her laugh a warm flutter beneath. Eyes closed, Arugula didn't see Zel's face until Zel's hand settled on hers, tightening gently when she jerked. "I--" Heart thudding against her ribs, Arugula looked up.

Zel's smile made her cheek perfectly round, and she squeezed Arugula's hand like a hug. "God, A. You're the only person I can talk to about this stuff." Her dark eyes shone, and Arugula wanted to say, 'you're the only one I can talk to about anything,' but her mouth was so dry it wouldn't open. But Zel just smiled wider, brighter, teeth glinting. "C'mon. Stay tonight?"

"My aunt--" Arugula said, and Zel mockingly echoed her. "Your aunt's got an even bigger stick wedged in than my mom does. C'mon, the weather sucks, you can't go home." Still holding Arugula's hand, Zel pushed her head against Arugula's shoulder. "I'll let you listen to my Walkman, Twenny off the 'Net sent me a new CD..."

"Oooh, okay!" The music Zel shared with Arugula was a revelation, ranging from the Beatles to raucous bands with different names every week; none of it was anything like what Arugula's aunt permitted, and Zel laughed and laughed at the surprised faces she made as they listened. She laughed now, and pulled Arugula up from her bed to email her aunt.

So they lay on the bed with the light off, one headphone for each of them, listening to the CD of various punk bands. "I'm totally going back to New York one day and seeing these guys in person," Zel said, as she often did, and sighed, as she often did. Arugula curled a little tighter against her side, guitars thrashing cheerfully in her ear, and watched Zel smile again. They fell asleep like that, music streaming in their ears, and Arugula woke up much later to find the clouds just breaking up, moonlight showing round their ragged edges, and Zel warm beside her, curls across the pillow, lips parted and breathing gently.

When Arugula's aunt grounded her for staying out she thought she'd have to hug that image to herself through all the empty nights, but Zel sent her emails with the letters switched around; Arugula decoded them, muffled her excitement, and deleted them before her aunt could read them. One night in April, when the wind flicked the treetops back and forth and whisked veils of cloud across the moon, she lay awake in bed, still and trembling, her heartbeat thudding in her ears, the damp green scents leaking through her curtained window. When her aunt's snores began echoing up the hallway she swept the covers aside and threw herself from her bed, dragged up the sheet and ran to the window. Prying it open, Arugula leaned out as far as she dared, though the wind blew through her nightgown and prickled up chilly goosebumps on her skin.

Zel stood below in the yard, her smile shining in the flickering moonlight, and Arugula had missed her so much she couldn't breathe. Her heart fluttering inside her chest, she threw the sheet down and clutched the end with trembling hands. She staggered when Zel took hold but held on, pushing her knees against the wall, and Zel climbed up the side of the house, every footfall thumping like a heavy drumbeat, Arugula's heart echoing in triple-time.

But Arugula's aunt kept on snoring, and no lights went on in the neighborhood; Zel caught the windowsill and hauled herself up, smile wide around her gasps of effort, and Arugula pulled on her jacket to help her over. Almost before she had both feet on the floor, Zel wrapped her arms around Arugula and squeezed hard, chest surging against hers; Arugula's mouth hit her cheek and Zel turned her face so their mouths met and kissed her, bright and shocking as a lightning strike.

Arugula gasped, and Zel jerked back, eyes round. "I-- A, I didn't--"

"I did," Arugula said, catching Zel's flaring cheeks between her hands, and kissed her back; her mouth was hot, chapped over juicy softness like an unpeeled ripe fruit, and then she laughed, squeezing Arugula till her ribs creaked, and opened her mouth to the kiss.

The next morning Arugula bounced down the stairs, humming her way into the kitchen; her aunt glared, snapped at her to "behave decently," and refused her permission to attend that Saturday's school-sponsored party. Arugula rolled her eyes but in truth was neither surprised nor disappointed; after her aunt went to sleep Saturday night Zel came to her window again. This time she'd brought a climbing rope, chocolate-chip cookies, and a book about human development whose pictures made Arugula blush and giggle. And this time, Zel took off her boots and jeans and jacket and shirt, and took Arugula's nightgown off her, and stayed the night.

At school that Monday, and all the days after, Arugula would look at Zel from the corner of her eyes, and remember how she looked in the dimness before dawn. Zel would smile at her from across a classroom or down a hallway, across everyone running and laughing and talking between them, and Arugula would remember their heads on one pillow, and blush hot and red. They went to school the same as ever, went to church on Sundays too, but inside Arugula she could feel everything changed in the right ways, feel herself as she truly was, until sometimes she couldn't believe everyone didn't see it all over her face. At home she answered her aunt as obediently as she could, not saying the rebellious things she thought, looking down demurely to direct her glare at the floor.

And her aunt never noticed, no one at school noticed. Nobody noticed except Zel.

On the fifteenth of May, when they'd left the window open and the air smelled like flowers and rain, Zel turned over in Arugula's arms and whispered damply over her ear, "My friend Mandy's sending me some hair stuff; last week of school I'm gonna put in a red streak. You wanna do yours, too?"

"If I color my hair--"

"Your aunt will kill you." Zel rolled her eyes, stroking Arugula's mouth with two fingertips. "You gotta do _something_ to piss her off before you die, you know."

"Maybe after I'm eighteen," Arugula said, struggling to be reasonable with Zel's fingers pressing lightly on her bottom lip. "Maybe after my trust comes due and I can move out."

"Maybe, maybe, mayoooh..." Arugula sucked Zel's fingers, and Zel moaned, and laughed, and gave up on debating for the night.

When the hair dye arrived, Zel sent Arugula an email which decoded to say, "Get here by six? I got some Pillarbox Red and some Spring Green. You know you want to, and I'll let you listen to that Billy Joel shit, *and* I'll go down on you. Course, I would anyway. ;D" It was already five-thirty, so Arugula logged out, grabbed her bag, and ran out of the house, forgetting to delete the email. And so, it was still in Arugula's inbox when her aunt logged into Arugula's account to ensure the messages were fit for a young girl's reading. What she found made her gasp, and press her hand to her mouth, and turn dark red in the face.

Arugula, meanwhile, was laughing and pushing at Zel's hands, saying, "no, I really shouldn't, I haven't gotten a job yet--" as Zel pinned her to the bed; Zel kissed her until she had no more breath for protests, and then some more after that, before finally sitting back triumphantly and brandishing the jar of dye. "You'll look _awesome_ with green hair," Zel promised. "And if she locks you up again my new Docs are great for climbing."

So Arugula unbraided her long hair and dipped it into the sink, and Zel kissed the back of her neck as she rubbed her hair full of green paste, rinsed it and dried it and sang cheerfully the whole time. Finally she stood Arugula before the bathroom mirror to see her hair, a long green shimmer around her face and down her shoulders. Against that green cloud her skin glowed delicate pink, and she looked like a different girl, like a mermaid or a naiad, someone otherworldly.

"Toldja you'd look awesome," Zel said, grinning wide, and kissed her.

Arugula had to go home that night, but as Zel braided Arugula's hair they planned for her next visit; she walked home humming and half-dancing, thumping out drumbeats with her heels along the sidewalk, up through her aunt's regimented garden and into the house.

Where her aunt waited just inside the front door, purple with rage. "You deviant little _whore_!" she shouted, as she never shouted, and Arugula's knees locked, her heart thumped and stopped. "All this time, you thought you had me fooled!" Her aunt waved her hands as if for God's attention. "I thought you had a friend, a good churchgoing girl, but the two of you, you've been committing unnatural acts all this time!"

As Arugula gaped in confusion her aunt suddenly seemed to notice her hair, gesticulating faster as she shrieked, "Now you're wearing your depravity for all to see!" She seized Arugula at the base of her braid, and Arugula cried out as her aunt hauled her into the kitchen, dragging on her hair as if to tear it out. "I won't have it," her aunt repeated like a slogan, as Arugula staggered and gasped, trying to keep up, trying to understand. "Looking like a freak from the City, like a _hippie_ , I won't have it." She threw Arugula into a kitchen chair and slammed cabinets and drawers, rummaging and muttering; as she clutched her aching scalp Arugula realized her aunt knew she and Zel were more than friends, were in love, and the thought chilled her down to her guts.

Her aunt returned brandishing a pair of scissors, and Arugula gasped, "Don't--" but her aunt knocked her hands away from her head long enough to grab her braid again. "Oh, God," Arugula said in desperation, and her aunt shook her so hard her vision swam.

"God doesn't hear little sluts who've abandoned His ways," she snapped, as she hacked at Arugula's hair. "Who've turned away from His paths, ten years I've kept you on those paths." Long green strands began to fall. "Been an upright example and a faithful guide, and you run off towards perdition the first chance you find." Arugula opened her mouth, but no words would come; her shoulders shook as she felt her braid tearing away. "God sent you to test me, sent that reprobate to turn my sister away, sent you to me." She threw the scissors on the table and, clutching Arugula's collar in her fist, dragged her towards the stairs. "I'll bring you back to Him yet." She pushed her up the stairs, moving relentlessly though Arugula stumbled tear-blind. "You get in that room, and you pray for His forgiveness, and you stay there till I come back for you." Shoving Arugula in, her aunt slammed the door behind her.

Arugula fell on her bed, green hairs shedding off her as she hugged herself and cried. Her hair was gone, her long hair was gone! Her head under her hands was tufty and uneven, nowhere longer than a finger, her scalp aching. Her aunt was going to keep her locked up forever now, Arugula thought, and she wept in despair.

But it didn't last long before she remembered. Her aunt couldn't keep her. She'd be eighteen in September, and till then she'd have Zel, climbing through her window, bringing her the world. Thinking of Zel, Arugula wiped her face and dusted herself off, though the long strands falling from her shoulders made her breath hitch. But Zel would laugh when she saw her, joke about her hair and kiss her; looking ahead to that, Arugula could even smile.

She put the smile away when her aunt stomped up the stairs again, knocking Arugula's door open with a bang. "Here," she snapped, holding out Arugula's school shoes. "Put these on. We're going to see Pastor Browne."

"No," Arugula said, or tried to, but her aunt glared and she felt weak and hollow from crying, so she took the shoes. "I don't look right."

"You brought how you look on yourself," her aunt answered, cold and heavy. "You brought this all on yourself, on all of us. Come on." Before her aunt could grab her again, Arugula stood, smudging her face with her hand, and went.

The visit to Pastor Browne's house was long and dreary, full of lectures and prayers as they knelt on the living room carpet. Arugula kept her head bowed the whole time, pretending she didn't see the pastor's wide-eyed daughters staring from the hallway. Maybe Zel would be waiting for her; maybe she'd see the scattered hair and figure out what had happened. Arugula clung to that thought as yet more verses were read, as Pastor Browne droned on about virtue and righteous married love, as Arugula's aunt insisted she'd raised her as well as possible and didn't know why she'd gone wrong.

At last, so late the pastor's voice shook with weariness, so late even her aunt was yawning, Arugula was dismissed to home, nodding obediently at his instructions until her neck ached. She trudged up the stairs as exhaustedly as she could, though her heart beat a secret rhythm; she might shut her door to find Zel crouched behind her bed, hand pressed over giggles, or at least a folded note on her nightstand.

But her room was as empty as she'd left it, green strands on the pillow, no Zel, no note. It had been a long night, and Arugula curled up again and let herself cry a little on her way to sleep.

The next day she put on her hooded jacket and left for school under her aunt's dark glare, walked two blocks, turned the corner, and ran as fast as she could. Arugula ran all the way to Zel's house, thinking to catch Zel on the way to school, to warn Zel her aunt knew and explain what had happened to all Zel's work on her hair. Legs jittering to the half-remembered beat of a song, something growled and thrashed, Arugula rang the doorbell and bounced nervously.

She was reeling before she felt the slap. Clutching her cheek, Arugula looked up at Zel's mother, her eyes red-rimmed, her hair sticking out in all directions. her hand already raised. "Get the hell out of here!" she cried, and Arugula gaped too long and was slapped again. "Go away, you little pervert! You corrupted my Druzella, you made me throw her out! Go to hell!" Tears were streaming down her face, her hands swinging, and Arugula ducked away from her and fled as fast as she'd come.

She ran blindly, eyes overflowing, till she stumbled into a deserted playground, fetched up against a rough-barked tree and fell to her knees, sobbing harder than she ever had the previous night. Zel was gone. Her mother had thrown her out, she was gone, and Arugula was completely alone. She hadn't felt this alone since she'd looked up from her parents' caskets to her aunt tall and severe beside her. Her aunt could've cut her hair off three times over if it would bring her Zel back.

Eventually Arugula cried herself out, muddy grass beneath her cheek, her stomach roiling and hiccups shaking her from the inside out. Eventually she groaned and sat up and scrubbed her sore face dry with her sleeve. If Zel's mother knew, Arugula's aunt must have told her, and that thought made her fists clench and her aching stomach tighten. Arugula's only happiness, and her aunt had destroyed it.

It was too late to get to school on time. Arugula walked home, feet pounding the rhythym of an angry guitar riff, rehearsing her most cutting words. She shoved the door open, stalked in, climbed the stairs and searched the whole house, but the one time she wanted to see her, her aunt had left for the day. Finally Arugula fetched up in the kitchen, where green tufts still littered the floor; the sight made her hitch, but she was done crying, until she confronted her aunt, until...

Until she found Zel.

Arugula's pay from her past summer jobs was all in her savings account; while she dug up the documents, she thought about where to go. Zel had often talked about her one trip to the City, the shows she'd seen before a truant officer had caught her and had sent her home. She'd dreamed of going back, getting deeper into the music scene, maybe singing with a band. She'd dreamed to Arugula, and Arugula would have followed her there or anywhere.

Zel would have gone to the City, and Arugula knew she had to leave before her aunt heard from her school. She threw clothes into a duffel, reached for her bookbag, and paused. If she went, she'd miss the last week of school. Bigger than that, she couldn't come back. Her aunt would never take her back.

Would she want her aunt back?

Arugula went into her aunt's room, and a few minutes' rummaging found the documents concerning her inheritance. She packed them carefully, took the Bible from her bookbag and threw it on her aunt's bed, and went to the computer. Her inbox was twice as full as it had ever been, the first email reading, "Tammy Browne said you and Zel are *lesbians*, your aunt brought you over last night to see her dad about it, is it *true*?" Arugula read it, and thought of everyone at school waiting eagerly to be horrified by the latest gossip. She snorted, deleted the email unanswered, and every note after it. One last email closed her account; Arugula looked back at her aunt's house, took a deep breath, shouldered her bags, and walked out the door.

****************************************************************

Bags heavy in her hands, people knocking into her shoulders as they hurried past, Arugula looked up. Buffeted by the crowd till her back hit a wall, cars honking and people talking and cursing around her, Arugula looked up. Above her, above the exhaust-laden breeze and the vehicles roaring past, stood a giant treeless forest of skyscrapers, vertical shafts of steel and stone and thousands of glinting windows. Wedged into a storefront, Arugula knew she should be getting her bearings, finding a place to go, but all she could do was crane her neck and stare up at impossibly tall buildings, flashing neon lights, and a distant patch of sky.

"You really shouldn't stand here like that," said a friendly voice. Arugula blinked and looked down, at a tall boy with a shaved head and a hiker's backpack, tucked into the alcove beside her. "Makes you look like a total tourist, you know."

Arugula stared at him. Ten years of lessons echoed that she wasn't supposed to talk to him as he smiled at her; ten years of lessons she'd left behind, she reminded herself, and swallowed hard.

"Nice hair, by the way," he continued.

"Thanks," Arugula said doubtfully, feeling the emptiness all down her back, holding onto her bags a little tighter.

"It's really punky." His grin widened beneath his beaky nose. "We'd better not stand here too long, unless you feel like getting yelled at some more. Heading for a hostel?"

"I, um--" Dragging her duffel all over the city probably wouldn't work, and she needed a place to sleep. "Yeah, I guess so."

"Cool, so'm I. The bus there stops at the corner, I think." He stuck his head out of their alcove, barely avoided a collision with a woman trotting on spike heels and jabbering into a cellphone, and ducked back. "If we don't get run over, that is. I'm Nicky, by the way." He scrubbed his hand on his T-shirt and held it out. "What's your name?"

Arugula opened her mouth, and thought of Zel. "Nice to meet you, Nicky. Call me A."

Nicky raised his eyebrow as he shook her hand, and spent half the bus ride wheedling till she told him her actual name and the other half cheerfully laughing at it till Arugula laughed too. Pretty soon they arrived at the hostel, a big brick building, the lobby wide and echoing and scattered with clumps of teenagers; three girls came over to him and smiled at Arugula, and when she introduced herself as 'A' Nicky said, "Whatever you say, Salad-head," laughing till the tallest girl elbowed him so forcefully her thatch of black hair bobbed.

"I thought you liked my hair!" Arugula protested, feeling weirdly bolder.

"Pay no attention to my idiot brother," said the tall girl. "I think it's awesome."

"Totally punk," said her shorter friend, bouncing on her heels, jiggling her puffy blonde curls. "I'm Maire. Wanna head down to Alphabet City with us tonight?"

"Please." Nicky snorted. "She's coming to CBGB with me."

"Dude, she's not your girlfriend," said his sister. "Are you, A?"

"No, I mean... no. Nicky, you're really nice, but I'm..." For a moment it was really tempting to leave it at that. They were all staring at her now, and her stomach suddenly hurt, but... Arugula took a deep breath, closed her eyes and thought of Zel. "I'm here looking for my girlfriend. When her mom found out about us she threw her out."

She braced herself, but no one said anything; she looked up, and breathed when she saw nothing but wide-eyed sympathy on all their faces. Nicky's sister patted her shoulder, Maire said, "That's _so_ romantic," and Arugula could smile again.

"You'll be in town for awhile, then." Nicky glanced at the third girl, who hadn't said anything yet. She regarded Arugula with clear brown eyes, for a long quiet moment, then nodded, and Nicky asked, "hey, you need a roommate?"

As it turned out, Tasha spoke a lot when she wanted to. As they rode the subway, hanging onto the straps and each other, the train's rumble juddering into Arugula's bones, she told Arugula about her years in foster care, and when Arugula said she was also an orphan, Tasha said, "then you know what it's like," and squeezed her arm. Arugula squeezed back and hung on to keep the crowd from sweeping her away, and because Tasha let her. After her childhood with her standoffish aunt, being touched so casually made her hyper-aware of her skin tingling with each jostle and collision, warm under Tasha's hand and the hot subway air. Still, no one felt like Zel.

Tasha, Nicky and his sister Niffer took Arugula to CBGB, "the great old temple of punk," as Niffer put it, to a cavernous dark room full of flashing colored lights and screaming people, where they saw a concert banged and thrashed out with so much energy Arugula's heartbeat pounded to the drumbeat. She danced, wild and loose, and she screamed in reply to the rangy lead singer, but she kept her eyes open for a particular flash of curly hair, her ears tuned through the shouts and noise for a particular husky voice.

Arugula didn't find Zel that night, and when the crowd spilled onto the street the high drained away, leaving her slumped against a lamp-post, her legs aching and her heart hurting worse. Niffer hugged her and said, "we'll find her," and Nicky made her laugh till she could run with them, racing curfew to the hostel.

That morning, and each one after, Arugula woke up almost expecting to find herself in bed in her aunt's house, instead of in a hostel dorm with five other girls; every morning she sat up and smiled, because she didn't. She was in the City, and the days were getting longer and hotter. She trotted and dodged down crowded sidewalks, heat radiating off the concrete to buffet her legs; she ate hot dogs and patties and curry and sushi, learned how to run down subway station stairs without falling and what neighborhoods not to get lost in. She went to three colleges for applications and found two jobs, moved in with Tasha to an apartment so tiny she could almost touch both walls at once, bought food at little bodegas full of produce she'd never seen before, and re-dyed her hair when her roots began to show. She spent her days chasing toddlers, making change, and seeing the sights, or just sitting on a bus with a book and watching the tall buildings and dappled crowds stream by.

The nights were an even bigger change; once, Arugula's curfew had been well before sunset, she never went out or outside, except to visit Zel. Now she walked out beneath the dark sky and the glittering lights, heading with her friends to shows in various clubs, little places barely bigger than her apartment, medium-sized places full of smoke and dancing, big places with mosh pits and side rooms. Night by night Arugula went out, making new friends, feeling the music and looking for Zel.

The summer stretched out, full of sweaty hot days and warm glittering nights, and sometimes Arugula lay on her empty futon listening to Tasha and her boyfriend Jamie just a thin wall away; sometimes she had trouble remembering what Zel had looked like when she laughed, or on that April night. Sometimes the City spread out around and above her, looming and dark and mazy, and she wondered if she could find Zel in such a huge place, if she'd even guessed correctly. Sometimes a jerk would leer and say something nasty, or a creepy guy followed her down the street, and she wondered if she should go home to safety and ask her aunt's forgiveness. But she kept going to shows, and kept asking people she met, kept learning her ways around the City, kept searching. When Tasha brought her a flyer for a show featuring a singer called Z, even though no one else could go with her that night Arugula went down to the club by herself.

When she ran up to the door the show had already started and the sidewalk was empty; the bouncer folded his hamlike arms and looked down his nose at her. "You wanna get in, dressed like _that_?"

Arugula looked down at herself; she was wearing a red T-shirt with "Riot Grrl" on it in silver marker, and she looked back up, ready to say, "what's wrong with my shirt?" but the bouncer's smile made her nervous.

Especially when he grinned and said, "Maybe I'll let you in. If you kiss me."

She almost said yes, because Zel might just be in there. And she almost thought, "my aunt was right about this City." But she didn't think that, and she said, "no," and "don't touch me, I've got mace," and when he laughed and stepped forward she ran away.

She ran till she found a bus stop; she dropped on the bench, wishing she'd called him an asshole, wondering if Zel was singing in that club, if Zel would even recognize her. Feeling heavy all over, feeling alone, Arugula put her head in her hands and cried.

But the City bustled around her, people walking and talking and laughing in the night, and she wiped her eyes and looked up at the bright windows and the cars whizzing past trailing streaks of light. A girl leaned from a fifth-floor window, blowing bubbles that glittered as they drifted, dancing circles in the air; Arugula watched for a little while, then got up, bought herself a hot pretzel, and made her way home.

When she got there she found two messages waiting, one from Jamie about Sunday's "8 bands/8 bucks" show at CBGB, and one from Niffer about The Hedgehog, some little place she'd heard about, where Satan's Nuns were playing on Saturday.

Arugula counted her cash; she had twenty-two bucks to last till next Friday. She looked out the window at the windows and roofs, and thought hard about Zel's face, and picked the Saturday show.

The Hedgehog was a steamy little place with no air conditioning and big amps; Satan's Nuns were five rocking college women, their music a jangly shimmer, and Arugula laughed at their snide irreligious lyrics and danced till her hair dripped. The lead singer tossed her long purple hair, shouting, "I've got someone for you guys to meet," and beckoned to the side of the stage, a spot left dark by the lights, until a short, sturdy girl climbed up. "This is our new roadie," the lead singer told the crowd, slinging her long arm round the girl's shoulders; the new roadie grinned, her hair in liberty spikes, a black patch over one eye and a glittering stud in her nose. "She fixed my baby here," said the singer, patting her guitar, "with a paper clip! Whadda you say?"

"Whoo-hoo!" everyone cheered, except Arugula, because she was too busy staring at the roadie as she laughed, one red-streaked curl left out of her spikes to bounce familiarly on her forehead. Arugula blinked, and saw, and screamed. She'd found her Zel.

She could feel people staring at her, but she didn't care. Tiptoeing and shimmying and murmuring "'scuse me", she slipped through the crowd as quickly as she could, struggling not to trip because she couldn't look at her feet or anywhere but the stage, craning her neck to see past people's tossing shoulders and waving arms. Zel said something to the lead singer, ducked out from under her arm, and waved to the crowd as she bounced offstage. Arugula watched the whole way, as she stumbled over people's feet and apologized over and over, following Zel down to the shadowed corner. A handful of people stood there, watching the band go into their next song, but Arugula barely saw all but one of them, and that one was laughing and turning away.

Desperately, Arugula wiggled between two broad-bodied guys, reached out, and her fingers just skimmed skin as she shouted into the noise, "Zel!"

Zel turned around, and her eye went round and shining in the darkness, and she shrieked, " _A!_ " and grabbed Arugula, pulling her into her arms. The band was screaming, someone beside them was saying, "what the hell?" and someone else was laughing, and Arugula barely heard any of it as Zel kissed her fast enough to bonk their noses, pulled her mouth away but only to kiss her better, hot and sweet and everything she'd been dreaming of all summer. Arugula pressed her hands into Zel's shoulders till she could feel her through her clothes, pressed herself against Zel's warm body, squeezed her and kissed her back. People around them were hooting, and it felt as hot as if a spotlight was on them, but Arugula didn't care about anything but Zel kissing her and in her arms.

At last, too soon, Zel pulled back to look at her, eye and teeth glinting in the darkness. "A! I've missed you so fucking much! I -- oh, come out here." She pulled Arugula through the crowd, their hands tangled tightly, through a door and a little hallway and into the alley out back, where the wall shuddered with the volume of the music inside.

Zel touched Arugula's cheek, stroking it as if to make sure she was solid. "I couldn't get to you! I emailed you, but it bounced! And your aunt hung up on me!"

"I shut down my account." Arugula pushed her fingers under Zel's sleeve, feeling her skin just as creamily soft as in memories. "She read my email, she told your mom about us, Zel, I'm sorry, I--" Zel shook her head. "Hell with them. both of them, we're here now, right?" Her fingers stroked up to Arugula's hair, and she blinked, and grinned, and ruffled it. "Damn, your head's like a bowl of sprouts. No, don't say sorry, it works on you." Her other arm braced Arugula's back. "Don't say sorry for anything, A. God, I've missed you." Her eye shone like it could light the alley. "You came after me. You found me."

"I found you," Arugula echoed. She couldn't even think, all she could do was look at Zel, hold onto her, breathe her in and kiss her again. Her finger slid up over the strap of Zel's eyepatch; she gasped, and Zel laughed against her mouth. "Oh, Zel, what happened--"

"Nothing, it's just for show, see?" Zel lifted it, revealing an "A" in silver marker on the inside, her eye unchanged and bright beneath. "And seeing in the dark, but mostly to look cool. I wrote an 'A' on it, for you."

Arugula laughed, and didn't even want to breathe as much as she wanted to kiss Zel again. But someone coughed in the doorway, and Arugula ducked shyly; Zel kissed Arugula's forehead as she flipped them off, laughed wonderfully as she turned and pulled Arugula with her. Several people had jammed into the doorway, "Devil's Nuns" scrawled on their tees and curiosity on their faces, and Zel leaned her head against Arugula's as she said warmly, "Guys, this's A, the girl I told you about. My girl."

Once upon a time, a girl called A searched in New York City until she found her lover Zel, who kissed her in front of cheering friends as they began their happily ever after.

 

 

 


End file.
